ny degree of satisfaction.

The scene now shifted to Lake Champlain. The main work was the building
up of an army to resist the menacing preparations for a British invasion
from Montreal. Among the new American generals who had gained promotion
by merit instead of favor was George Izard, trained in the military
schools of England and Prussia, and an aide to Alexander Hamilton during
his command of the army of the United States. Izard had been sent to
Plattsburg in May, 1814, on the very eve of the great British campaign,
and found everything in a deplorable state of unreadiness and
inefficiency. While he was manfully struggling with these difficulties,
Secretary Armstrong directed him to send four thousand of his men to the
assistance of Jacob Brown on the Niagara front. General Izard obediently
and promptly set out, although the defense of Lake Champlain was thereby
deprived of this large body of troops. The expedition was almost barren
of results, however, and at a time when every trained soldier was needed
to oppose the march of the British veterans, Izard was at Fort Erie,
idle, waiting to build winter quarters and writing to the War
Department: "I confess I am greatly embarrassed. At the head of the most
efficient army the United States have possessed during this war, much
must be expected of me; and yet I can discern no object which can be
achieved at this point worthy of the risk which will attend its
attempt."

Izard had already predicted that the withdrawal of his forces from
Plattsburg would leave northeastern New York at the mercy of the British
and he spoke the truth. No sooner had his divisions started westward
than the British army, ten thousand strong, under General Prevost,
crossed the frontier and marched rapidly toward the Saranac River and
then straight on to Plattsburg. Possession of this trading town the
British particularly desired because through it passed an enormous
amount of illicit traffic with Canada. Both Izard and Prevost agreed in
the statement that the British army was almost entirely fed on supplies
drawn from New York and Vermont by way of Lake Champlain. "Two thirds of
the army in Canada are supplied with beef by American contractors,"
wrote Prevost, and there were not enough highways to accommodate the
herds of cattle which were driven across the border.

To protect this source of supply by conquering the region was the task
assigned the splendid army of British regulars who had fou